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MunichLuthier -> RE: Tuning machines: what's wrong with using 3-in-1 oil? (May 20 2015 22:25:51)
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May I add something?
Never put any kind of oil on your tuners! Motor oil is useless, because it lubricates only once it has gone into damp state because of motor heat. As long as it is in liquid state it does nothing...
Sewing machine oil and all other oils based on fossile oil will not do it as they don't work on wood. Plant oils don't do the job either because they harden and get sticky after a while.
What are the mechanic principles and statics of a tuning machine? It is a so called worm gear (is that right? I am no native speaker...), so you have no preassure between the wheel and the axe/roller. Oiling there helps nothing but provides a perfect mess to collect all kinds of dust and dirt that in the end makes the wheel/roller transmission even harder...
Where is the preassure? Its on both sides of the roller, where the roller passes/touches wood. Putting oil on a wood/plastic or wood/ebony or wood/whatever bearing helps nothing. The oil gets sucked into the wood, it dissolves the natural oils, waxes and resins and produces damage.
There is only one spot, where normal oil helps: Where the roller passes the plate.
What really helps is using a trick that ancient carpenters used already some 5000 years ago e.g. in old egypt: They "lubricated" wood/wood and wood/ebony bearings with a special wax - carnauba is the solution. In order to be able to apply it, one has to take out he machines, heat and melt some carnauba and apply a few drops into the walls of the holes and then put the machine back.
This will provide a long lasting solution that collects no dirt, that does not damage to the wood and that works.
My oldest guitar is alomst 100 years old and its tuners run like a charm with this trick. I have "oiled" many guitars like this and the owners report that they never had any issues after that.
The other solution is to buy some good tuners like Scheller or Alessi or Graf or Rodgers that have bearings on both sides of the rollers.
I hope you find this usefull!
Kind regards - Michael
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